Posts tagged ‘Verizon’

It’s now been a week since I got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which I LOVE! Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly.

Overall it’s a solid device, and the best part of the phone is Android 4.0; Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). I love the face unlock feature which is a new feature in ICS. It’s really cool but it’s more of a show feature. After about two days, I got sick of looking at myself every time I had to unlock the phone and eventually reverted back to the old school slide unlock. The other thing that I really like a lot is the speed of the speech to text feature. With the improved speech to text feature it’s pretty much real time and you’re able to indicate punctuation and emoticons 🙂 Google has also improved the camera, pictures now snap instantly. In fact it was so fast, I took the same picture a couple of times thinking that it wasn’t working!

As for the hardware, the phone feels solid. I LOVE love LOVE the 4.65 screen size. At first I was very worried that it would be too big, but when you hold it in your hand it feels comfortable. The extra real estate is much appreciated when I’m surfing and watching TV on my phone (yes I use my phone as my primary device). Also, it doesn’t feel clunky when you’re actually talking on the phone.

Now for the bad. As many people have complained and Verizon has acknowledge, the signal strength on the phone is not awesome. Considering that I moved from T-mobile because I had issues with dropped calls, I wasn’t too thrilled when I found this out. Although, the signal is weak I haven’t had any dropped calls yet (knock on wood) and voice quality is good. Verizon has pledge to fix this issue with a software update so I guess I can live with it for now and shack it up as the price to pay to be an early adapter.

As for the ugly, the battery life on the phone is HORRENDOUS and I’m extremely disappointed from this aspect. Although, I have to say it’s improved over the week. Earlier this week I managed to get 3.5 hours of battery life out of the phone, I was on LTE and was heavily using my phone. So here are some tips and tricks to help improve your batter life on your Galaxy Nexus.

Turn off haptic feedback- I heavily use GTalk on my phone so I found this really helped. To turn this off go to Settings-> Keyboard ->Android Keyboard settings (or the keyboard of your choice) -> uncheck vibrate on keypress. Additionally, you can turn off the haptic feedback on the menu buttons by going to Settings-> Sounds-> uncheck the vibrate on touch

Turn off WiFi- Turn off WiFi when it’s not needed. I installed Llama which is a location profile app and have set it to turn off WiFi when I’m not at home.

Set WiFi to never sleep when your phone is in the away mode (Settings -> WiFi->Advance->Keep WiFi on during sleep (always))

Use auto brightness on your phone

I know that the reason that the battery life is so poor is mainly due to the fact that I’m using LTE. You can always opt to not use LTE but one of the reasons why I got the phone is for the improved data speeds so that wasn’t an option for me. Also, Google is soon releasing an update which should help battery life. With the small improvements I managed to get 10h 8 mins today with 14% left. Also, I didn’t use my phone quite as often today but I’m much more happier that I was able to go a full day without charging it.

With that said, if you’re not willing to live with the minor issues then hold off on getting the phone. Otherwise, I would jump on it right away 🙂

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The leaders in the smart phone battle – Apple and Samsung – have released their latest phones – iPhone 4S and Galaxy S II. The decision factors for buying a smart phone vary from person to person but what is the most important aspect of a smart phone for you? Is it aesthetics, hardware superiority or ease of use? We will try to break it down for you!

1. Aesthetics – Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

iPhone 4S has a similar rectangular, glass and aluminium design as that of the iPhone 4. Galaxy S is taller and wider than the iPhone 4S. It also a bit thinner overall, bottom is thicker than the top, which we think might give a better grasp of the phone.

The iPhone has its customary circular home button, present in all its iDevices, for navigation and control. The Galaxy S has the on-screen buttons and does not have any physical buttons. The physical button adds to ease of use while the onscreen buttons need some getting used to. The iPhone 4S comes in black and white while the Galaxy S comes in black and grey.

We think the display on both the devices – Apple’s Retina Display and Samsung’s Super AMOLED are very comparable. Text and images should be as sharp as you hope on both the devices. The height and width dimensions on the Galaxy S II increases the display size, but it does come at the risk of being a wee bit bigger to hold.

2. Innards – Lets strip open the two devices

Memory – iPhone 4S has a 512 MB on board RAM and Galaxy S II has 1 GB RAM. This does not account for your on board storage. The higher RAM would account for better performance, although it depends on the implementation of the OS – Android or iOS. The best way is for you to do a hands on test on both phones and try navigation, running Apps, opening and closing apps, running multiple apps at the same time etc to see which one is optimal for you.

Processor – Galaxy S II has a slightly better processor technically, but performance cannot be defined by this alone. For ex. iPhone 4S did better on browser speeds.

Download speed – Galaxy S II has an added advantage of supporting LTE – the real 4G, but again it depends on if LTE is actually supported in your area. On the iPhone 4S, there have been reports that Verizon and AT&T have better speeds than Sprint. All in all, unless you are watching videos while on 3G/4G (not WiFi), or listening to music, or downloading Apps etc, you shouldn’t worry much about the data speeds. I mostly listen to streaming radio and rarely watch videos on AT&T, and so far I haven’t had any issues.

Storage – Ok, this is something most of the users should be concerned about. iPhone 4S comes with storage space of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB while Galaxy S II with only 16 GB and 32 GB. Additionally, iPhone 4S comes with free iCloud storage which automatically backs up all your data to the cloud, we haven’t heard about it being available on the Galaxy S II yet.

Battery Life – Both the phones have about 8 hours of talk time.

Camera – iPhone 4S has a 8 MP rear camera with a f 2.4 aperture for high quality images, along with face detection, image stabilization and 1080p video. Galaxy S II has a 5MP camera, supports 1080 p video and comes with panorama support. The iPhone 4 is expected to take quicker photos. I like how the smart phones manufacturers are stepping it up and trampling the camera industry.

3. Features and ease of use

This is something you have to decide by trying out the two phones and their operating systems. The iPhone 4S boasts the new feature rich iOS 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S II boasts Android’s latest software version – Ice Cream sandwich. Take a look at our comparison of the features in both.

If you have been waiting on news of the best network speeds to help you decide which operator to switch to, iDownload Blog has done the work for you, although your geographical location needs to be considered too. Amongst the three, Sprint seems to be disappointing its users, while AT&T and Verizon are doing much better.

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Sprint customers, it’s time to raise a glass! Bloomberg reports that you can officially get iPhone 5 on Sprint (yes, no more jail breaking) Sprint is planning to offer Apple’s iPhone 5 next month with unlimited data at a flat fee. If you are a heavy Netflix or a Pandora user like me, then this is going to be a sweet deal. Since Sprint is trying to differentiate itself from its arch enemies AT&T and Verizon, I’m pretty sure the flat fee will be a competitive price!

AT&T and Verizon charge $69.99 for unlimited voice plans. AT&T charges $15 for 200 megabytes, $25 for 2 gigabytes and $45 for 4 gigabytes of data while Verizon’s rates are $30 for 2 gigabytes and $80 for 10 gigabytes of data.

Sprint’s arrival into the iPhone world is a welcome change for us customers. We may stop paying through our noses for surfing on our phones.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

Wow, 5 years later and the iPhone finally makes it to 3 out of the 4 major US carriers 😉

Unlimited data on 4G would even be sweeter but I doubt that will happen with the iPhone 5. Would you really buy a new phone, something that you’ll use for at least 1-2 years and still surf on 3G? There are quite number of powerful Android devices on Sprint such as the Nexus S and EVO (4G & 3D) that allows for you to surf at 4G speeds.

There are also rumors that T-Mobile will be getting the iPhone 5 as well, but it’s all speculation at this point. Who knows, hopefully the iPhone will be available across all carriers soon. That way when Android still dominates, Apple Girl can’t use the it’s not a fair playing field excuse 😉

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If you are deciding between an iPad 2 vs a Xoom, here are some points you should consider before jumping the gun

1. Aesthetics

iPad 2 wins the aesthetics battle against the Motorola Xoom. The super sleek iPad is 33% thinner than the first generation iPad, thinner than the iPhone 4, thinner and lighter than Motorola Xoom.

2. iOS

iPad has been out for more than a year and has been tested, optimized and improved through its life. Android’s Honeycomb, on the other hand, was just recently released with the Xoom. I would expect a lot of pitfalls with the OS.

3. App Store

Steve Jobs pointed out that Apple has 65000+ Apps specifically designed to run on the iPad while Android has somewhere around a 100 Apps. Let’s not even start comparing here 🙂

4. Price

Another winning point for Apple. The iPad 2 prices start at $499 for the bare bones 16GB iPad 2 with Wifi only. Compare it with $599 Xoom.

5. Verizon and AT&T

iPad 2 supports both AT&T (GSM) and Verizon (CDMA) while Xoom only supports Verizon. So if you are one of those road warriors hooked onto your 3G data plan with AT&T, buying an iPad2 is a no brainer.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

I think Steve Jobs announcing the iPad 2 was bigger news than the iPad 2 itself.

1. Aesthetics

I’ll give Apple this, in terms of hardware the iPad 2 will be the thinest tablet out there. However, there’s a bigger display on the Motorola Xoom, 10.1 inch with a 1280 x 800 resolution versus the same old 9.7 inch and 1024 X 768 resolution. Honestly, that Apple didn’t improve the resolution. Apple, wheres’ the retina (ISP) display?!

2. OS

iOS “has been tested, optimized and improved”, wow that sure sounds like fluff to me. Here’s the fluff that iOS 4.3 will be offering

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Did anyone get to watch all the Android and Apple ads at Super Bowl yesterday? Because GoogleChic and I didn’t. Despite all our efforts to get everyone at the party to focus on the TV during commercial breaks and keep the noise down, we could only watch the Sony PSP, Motorola Xoom, AT&T iPhone and Verizon iPhone ads. So we dug around the net and found the commercials that we missed. What we thought of them?

Sony Xperia Play: This phone would have been an awesome phone maybe ten years ago. Sony made two separate devices, a PSP and a phone. Who thought combining the two would take them half a decade and really, who cares about the droid to human evolution?

Motorola Xoom: You probably remember the preview that Motorola released before Super Bowl. The Super Bowl commercial had the same 1984 aura with the theme “Empower the People”. There is one guy who stands out amongst the rest of people who are in white jumpsuits and white headphones. GoogleChic, it appears to me that Motorola is acknowledging Apple’s place in tech history. The ad doesn’t say what Xoom can do better than an iPad 😉 Motorola Xoom is expected to cost $800 (that’s a steep $300 more than the iPad). Ouch, are you paying for that million dollar commercial?

Google Search: I think this is an old commercial but I actually like this one! The key is to focus on the product (not the robot, not the guys with the white ear phones) 🙂

AT&T and Verizon iPhone: We had covered these two ads earlier. It cracks me up every time I see AT&T and Verizon playing the iPhone tug-of-war 🙂

Sony PSP Commercial

Google Search Commercial

Motorola Xoom Commercial

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

I’m at a loss for words. There are people who watch the Super Bowl for the game and there are people like us who watch the Super Bowl for the ads and we missed half of them!

You all know how much I like Angry Birds. How many of y’all caught the secret code in the Rio trailer? We at least caught the Rio trailer but I sure missed the code! Now that I know where to look it sure is a lot easier 🙂 (0:27 in the clip below).

If you want to know how to use the code, check out the video below.

P.S. What was y’alls favorite commercial? Mine was the Doritos ad. I still can’t stop laughing every time I see this!

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Check out the Verizon iPhone ad! After a long wait Verizon customers can finally get their hands on the Apple iPhone starting February 20, 2011. Any thoughts on Verizon iPhone subscriptions squashing Verizon Android sales? 😀

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

Looks like Apple released its own ad stating that two is better than one. I like the features vary by carrier disclaimer 🙂

Don’t hold your breathe AppleGirl, the iPhone 4 doesn’t support the Verizon’s LTE network. However, there are quite a number of Android phones like the HTC ThunderBolt and the Motorola Bionic which will take advantage of it. With phones like those, I think Android will be squashing the iPhone sales 🙂

Tethering – The Verizon iPhone 4 can share the 3G connection with up to 5 Wi-Fi enabled devices. GoogleChic, that means Android just lost some bragging rights 🙂

Choice of network – Prospective iPhone 4 customers can now choose between AT&T and Verizon network. AT&T iPhone exclusivity was propelling Android phones on Verizon. With the Verizon iPhone release, we can look forward to Android’s downhill trajectory 😉

No crappy pre-installed Verizon Apps – Shouldn’t we thank Apple for keeping these operators like Verizon on a tight leash?

The Bad

No LTE support – The Verizon iPhone 4 supports CDMA (3G) only and is not LTE (4G) capable. So you cannot avail the super fast 4G LTE network data rates on the iPhone.

No simultaneous voice and data calls – Ouch this one is gonna hurt Verizon! Verizon’s CDMA network can’t handle data and voice both at the same time and AT&T can! (You should expect to see AT&T dissing Verizon over this in the future)

CDMA technology – If you are one of those world trotters, you won’t be able to use the Verizon iPhone in most countries where CDMA is not supported.

No Facetime over Verizon network – Just as AT&T, Verizon will not allow FaceTime over its 3G network. With an expected 9 – 10 million units sales by end of this year, Verizon seems to be reluctant to give away its 3G network for FaceTime calls. GoogleChic, do you think Verizon expects more video calling with iPhones than with Androids? 😉

All in all, if you think AT&T network really sucks and you are one of those tethering freaks who doesn’t mind the few drawbacks then the Verizon iPhone is a good fit for you.

BY THE GOOGLE CHIC

Finally! After the long grueling wait(years in fact) the iPhone is now available on big red.

However, as AppleGirl has mentioned there are quite a number of drawbacks that you will need to evaluate before switching to big red if you wish.

Yes, tethering is supported on the Verizon’s version, but is that more important than being able to surf and talk at the same time? I agree with AppleGirl on this one, it’s a big ouch! As for bragging rights, I’m actually tired of bragging about being able to tether. This is old news for us Android users, we’ll move onto bragging about dual core phones and fingerprint scanners on our phone (more to come on this, I’m referring to the Motorola Atrix 4G).

Not to mention, Verizon is coming out with their LTE network, but thanks to Steve Jobs, iPhone users are going to be left behind since Apple doesn’t like to adapt to “newer” (not proven according to Jobs) technologies. Again, think about a dual core processor phone utilizing the 4G speed, this is the future, taking the power of smartphones to a new level. Hmm, AppleGirl sounds like the Android trajectory will just go uphill 😉

In fact, I’m really happy that the iPhone is going to Verizon. Now that AT&T is no longer the exclusive carrier it looks like they’re finally improving their Android line. In fact the Motorola Atrix 4G is heading to them!

For all you die hard Apple fans, check out the chart below from Engadget. It’s food for thought before you lock yourself down one way or another.

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Just a couple of weeks back, AppleGirl was saying how NFC technology will lead us out of the technological stone-age and that Apple will lead the way.

Well eat your heart out AppleGirl, Eric Schmidt announced today at the Web 2.0 summit that the Nexus S (Google’s 2nd phone) will have NFC technology. Not only that, Schmidt announced that Gingerbread (Android 2.3) will be released in the next couple of weeks.

Check out the pics of the Nexus S. The phone looks super sleek and thin! I guess I know what my Christmas present will be 😉

P.S The Nexus S is produced by Samsung, of course not officially announced.

GoogleChic, I am certainly interested in the concept of NFC but not psyched about the fact that it is tied with Google. With all the user privacy debacles that Google has been having recently, I would be scared to use the phone as a credit card. You would not want a Google employee vacationing in the Bahamas using your credit card information, would you? 🙂

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have joined hands to form a national payment network, called Isis which is expected to roll out in the next 18 months. It’s essentially a mobile commerce network which will create a more convenient shopping experience for customers. Other phone manufacturers like Blackberry and Nokia are getting ready to jump with both feet into the NFC puddle as well.

GoogleChic, you might be able to get NFC on your phone this Christmas, but I doubt you would use it much until next year, when iPhone 5 is expected to be launched. Doing things at the right time in the right way is important for a business and that’s what Apple does best 😀